Waking the Archbishop
by pari106
Summary: The Bourne Identity. Jason's thoughts, the morning after for him and Marie.


Waking the Archbishop  
by pari106  
  
http://www.geocities.com/pari106/index.html ; pari106@hotmail.com ; Disclaimer: Neither "The Bourne   
Identity" nor its characters belong to me. This short story does; Rating: PG for the occasional   
"inappropriate" word; Summary: Was anyone else – during the scene in which Marie wakes up in the motel   
room after she and Jason have made love – wondering if perhaps Jason hadn't already left? This takes   
place before Marie wakes. Jason's thoughts.  
  
~ ~ ~ ~  
  
  
  
Be careful what you wish for.   
  
"Jason" remembered the adage, even if he couldn't remember where from or when. He   
remembered an awful lot of little things like that; words, phrases. Whole languages,   
even. The names of places he couldn't remember having visited and of people he   
couldn't remember having met.   
  
Funny that he remembered so many little things like that – even about himself. But he   
couldn't remember his own birthday. Or his birthplace. Or even how he knew that he   
should have one. Funny…but Jason wasn't laughing.  
  
Instead, he lay there beside Marie – her warmth at once strange and familiar. Strange   
because he couldn't remember every having lain there like that before – with someone he   
trusted totally and who seemed to trust him. Familiar because Marie was the only one,   
the only thing, familiar in his life anymore.   
  
Jason stared over Marie's bare shoulder, out the hotel window, and at the first rays of   
sunlight to disturb the pre-dawn sky. He considered the words that had come, unbidden,   
to his mind. 'Be careful what you wish for…because you just might get it.' When the   
fishing boat that had rescued him had reached Switzerland, all Jason had wanted was a   
name for himself. A story.  
  
But now he had several.   
  
And he hadn't become less discontent each time a new facet of his life's story (or lives'   
stories, as it so happened) presented itself. If anything…things were only getting worse.   
And Jason feared that the new day would only bring the worst to come yet.  
  
What a strong argument against wishing for things. Yet Jason couldn't seem to help   
himself. He was beginning to no longer wish to know himself. But he wished he didn't   
suspect the things about himself that he'd come to suspect. He wished he could just lie   
there, holding Marie and appreciating the feel of her next to him; the glint of the sun off   
her now short, ebony hair… Instead, he was staring at the window. Wondering if –   
should a gunman burst in at that moment – he could vault through that window and land   
in a way that he would still be able to walk. Or run. Or fight.  
  
He wished he could say for sure that he was "Jason Bourne". Jason. The name Marie   
had whispered, then moaned, as they'd made love the night before. Not John Michael   
Kane, or any of the other fucking identities he carried around in his little red bag. He   
wished he could say that this was who he was – the guy lying in bed with a woman he   
came to care for more and more each day. Watching the sunlight find her flawless skin.   
Not the guy wondering how his and Marie's activities the night before would complicate   
clean-up when it came time to make their presence there undetectable.  
  
But it was impossible. It was like a tale he'd heard – somewhere, some time – about an   
archbishop and a grasshopper. An old tale, in which the archbishop dreamed…of a   
grasshopper dreaming of an archbishop. Who was the dreamer and who the dream? The   
archbishop…or the grasshopper? Who was he? Jason Bourne? Or the man in Jason's   
head - who didn't need a name or a birthday or time to watch the sun rise. Only food to   
eat and a place to sleep, just long enough to facilitate bodily function, and time to prepare   
for the enemy that surely lay in wait.  
  
Jason wished the latter man didn't even exist.  
  
He wished that he could leave before the opposite proved itself to be true. Leave Marie   
before she found out the truth. Leave before he could hurt her with whoever he turned   
out to be.  
  
But Jason couldn't leave. Because there was one other wish he'd made in Zurich; he'd   
wished that he was unalone in his search. He'd wished for someone to be there for him.   
And his wish had come true in Marie. Now he had someone, someone he was   
responsible for, someone he couldn't be sure wouldn't get hurt just as badly, if not worse,   
if he left her on her own. Marie's safety had suddenly become as much a reason for his   
search as the discovery of his own identity.  
  
Jason only wished that he could be sure that securing the one cause wouldn't jeopardize   
the other. 


End file.
